Google is forced to review its
new home assistant who suffers a bug allowing him to spy on its owners. A
journalist was thus recorded for several days without his knowledge.
This miniature domestic
assistant can answer questions, roll out agenda or even give the weather of the
day. A few days before its official release, on October 2017, it was loaned to
several journalists for a test phase. One of them, Arthem Russakovskii, realized
that the Google Mini was actually listening to him 24 hours a day due to a bug
activating the recording function.
To confirm his intuition, the
journalist connected to the interface that lists all activities recorded on
devices connected to Google. Then he understood that almost all his
conversations had been transmitted to Google without asking his agreement.
This failure from Google is a
real trouble in a world where data’s privacy is everything. They start to
implement their ‘home assistant’ machine into houses with Google Home and the
very first issue with this product is that it recorded everything the owner was
saying inside his house. Even if this was a bug is it normal that Google
implement this kind of function on its device ?
After this issue it’s tough
for Google to settle a great and trustful relationship with consumers. While
Amazon has already implemented its Amazon Echo device into a lot of American
family houses, the implementation of Google Home into European countries could
be way harder with this kind of issues because people will start to fear for
their datas. With this spying issue, the message sent is ‘Our datas are not
safe with Google introducing its products in our house’.
That’s why Google reacted in a
few hours to this problem, preferring to "permanently remove" the
option responsible for this disfunctionment of its Google Home Mini. The
manufacturer has indeed placed a touch button at the top of the speaker that activates
the slightest vibration and Google just straightly removed it after the privacy
issue.
How European people should
react to this Google Home case and how it will change our life as consumers?
Should we afford to let Google access our datas in order to get a
‘technological house’?
Arthur Philipon & Julien Fraysse
Sources:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high-tech/2017/10/12/32001-20171012ARTFIG00207-l-enceinte-connectee-google-home-mini-espionnait-ses-utilisateurs.php?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1507822271
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